Matthew BoyleThe Post Office has extended its contentious contract with Fujitsu, an IT provider, for supporting two datacenters until March 2025, adding an extra cost of £36 million. This extension brings the total additional cost to £52 million, reflecting an earlier announcement for the continued support of the Horizon branch accounting system. Despite the Horizon software being at the center of the largest judicial scandal in Scottish history, involving wrongful convictions of over 900 subpostmasters for theft and false accounting, the UK government persists in funding it. Many subpostmasters have had their wrongful convictions overturned, yet the scandal has resulted in significant financial losses and personal bankruptcies. Although the Post Office had plans to switch to AWS, they retained Fujitsu due to feasibility issues. This decision necessitates further datacenter fortification to ensure stability and business continuity. Despite its controversial involvement, Fujitsu continues to secure lucrative UK government IT contracts, including deals with the FCDO and HMRC. The ongoing legal inquiry and compensation efforts reflect the enduring impact and financial burden of the Horizon scandal on subpostmasters and taxpayers alike.
Fujitsu Post Office Contract Extension Amid Horizon Software Scandal and Subpostmaster Injustice
The Post Office has extended a contentious contract with Fujitsu, an IT provider, to support two datacenters through the end of March 2025, at an extra cost of £36 million.
The overall additional cost to March 2025 is now £52m, when taken into account an earlier this year announcement that a services contact with Fujitsu would be extended to support the Post Office’s branch accounting system, Horizon.
The government continues to give Fujitsu’s Horizon software millions of pounds of taxpayer money despite the fact that it is at the center of the biggest injustice in Scottish history.
Numerous subpostmasters are being charged with economic crimes like theft and misleading accounting thanks to the Fujitsu contract and the core Horizon software. In a 2019 High Court case, it was established that the Horizon system had flaws and nbsp that might have led to unjustified losses.
Subpostmasters’ Compensation Reaches Over £1 Billion Amid Horizon System Flaws and Extended Fujitsu Contract
Based on information from the weak Horizon system, more than 900 subpostmasters were charged with crimes such as theft and fake accounting.
96 original subpostmasters have already had their wrongful convictions overturned, and more are on the way. According to bankruptcy and the loss of their businesses and property, some more subpostmasters had their lives destroyed. Taxpayers in the UK are spending well over £1 billion on the scandal to pay subpostmasters compensation and to support the ongoing legal open inquiry into what occurred.
As part of transforming the business for the future, we are continuing to invest in our current technology, according to a Post Office spokesman.” Work is also being done, in collaboration with our subpostmasters. When the original contract with Fujitsu was set to expire in March 2023, the Post Office initially intended to switch the two services to AWS. However, this plan was shelved in September 2022 because it was no longer essentially feasible.
Statement: Extended Fujitsu Contract and Subpostmasters’ Struggle for Compensation Amid Ongoing Horizon Software Scandal
According to the most recent contract award,” Datacentre fortification works must be carried out as a result of this retention of datacenter capabilities in order to provide stability, prevent obsolescence, and ensure business continuity.” As a result, this modification includes funding for an ideal reset and improvement program.
The “yet another extension to Fujitsu’s contract” left Alan Bates, a previous subpostmaster and victim of the Horizon scandal, unconcerned. He was the leader of an organization of subsubpostmastes in their fight for justice.
Receiving compensation for those who lost their lives in the scandal, which was brought on by the Post Office and Fujitsu, has been like squeezing blood out of a stone, but the government appears content to keep dumping money at the latter.
The Chinese IT behemoth has continued to receive profitable contracts from the UK government despite its involvement in the scandal. It received IT services contracts and nbsp last year from the Foreign, Commonwealth &, Development Office (FCDO ) and the Home Office’s HM Revenue andamp and Customs ( HMRC ). While the FCDO has contracted it to provide networking and communications services in , a deal for £184m, and the Home Office is paying Fujitsu £48m to support the technology underpinning the Police National Database, it will be paid £250m by HMRC & nBSP to replace an in-house service.
Seven subpostmasters who had been impacted by the losses were profiled by Computer Weekly in 2009, and as a result, many more suffered losses in the future ( see the timeline of the articles on the site below ).
